Shortly after its launch last year, it was hinted that Pinball FX3 on Switch would be getting a patch to improve its visuals, which some felt were slightly lacking. Developer Zen Studios backtracked on this recently, stating that the patch was no longer in development, citing a lack of resource as the reason for the cancellation.

Keeping up so far? Well you're going to love this, because Zen Studios has now announced that the patch is coming after all:

The community has spoken, and as we pride ourselves in doing at Zen Studios, we are listening. Zen is happy to confirm that we will in fact release a patch to bring all Pinball FX3 content to 60 FPS in handheld mode on Nintendo Switch this summer. The time between now and then will be spent achieving 60 FPS in handheld mode and 1080p Full HD in docked mode for all 30+ tables in the library, plus testing and then publishing submissions to Nintendo.

In the meantime, we still proudly stand by the current Switch iteration of Pinball FX3, which currently boasts a very respectable 83 Metacritic rating, and we will continue to release exceptional content in the months to come.

As longtime followers of Zen well know, we have been one of the most community-friendly game developers for over a decade. We have focused on long-term relationships with players and have provided extra value, whether it was a brand-new pinball platform for free, free content imports or free DLC. We have always chosen to put players first.

I hope you all can take this commitment to improving an already great game as a sign that Zen Studios truly values the players that support us, and we will continue to support you for the long term.

Have you been holding out for this patch since launch, or do you think the game is perfectly fine as it is? Let us know by playin' some mean pinball in the comments section below.

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Tables seemed fine to me as is, being the only version of this I've played I didn't know any better, but I'm glad they're going to work at getting the resolution and frame rate to the same standards as other platforms.

Well done for taking some action. They had to really if they wanted future sales not to be damaged as they received an almighty backlash following their earlier statement. The previous version on Wii U ran at 60fps.

@Lroy thanks for tagging me. Didn't see this one pop up.Well, looks like I'm back in then, but I'll be holding off buying more tables till it's actually released this time. Looks like the community outcry and disappointment over what went down really made them reconsider, which is certainly a good thing. Still feel like it shouldn't even have come to that, but hey, no need to keep dragging it in light of this good news.

As it is, it's not fine by any means. This is an unfinished game, a step back. They wanted to be on Switch in time for Christmas but in the end, they messed it up. To be fair, I'm glad they gave away 3 tables for free, but I'm glad I've spent zero euros so far, too.Let's see what happens in summer, and play dozens of polished games meanwhile.

I am a long-time supporter of Zen, but this will be a MAJOR blemish on their record if they can't get their tables to run properly on Switch.

It was bad enough that Zen released their tables on Switch knowing that the performance was very sub-par compared to almost every other platform out there (including iPad)... and it was even dumber to announce that the patch was "cancelled" since that hurt their reputation even more.

I'm glad to hear that they are still attempting to get things working properly, but I will believe it when I see it.

The game looks and plays brilliantly in docked mode. It runs at a solid 60fps and if they had never said anything most of the folk complaining would never have known any different. Portable mode running at 30fps isn't ideal though. It's perfectly playable but when you're used to the silky smooth action in docked it takes some adjusting to get used to it.

When charging $80 for all the content its a complete shambles they thought they didn’t have to fix it. Another case of devs being arrogant when it comes to switch owners - with the numbers of switches now in circulation they have to realise sloppy ports and unpatched titles on the switch will lead to loss of sales on PS4 and Xbox - a couple of series now I will avoid unless games are fixed on switch and I will avoid on PS4 and Xbox one.... switch has proved it can handle a great many complex things - it’s lazy to blame hardware - if you know what you are doing you can optimise your title for the massive market that exsists on the switch - if you wanna sell a broken game and ignore the switch (wwe 2k18 the worst culprit so far) - it will damage your whole brand I hope (2k beware!)

I wasn't even aware that they had previously reneged on releasing a patch. I'm not even sure if I want to support a company that does that to its customers but it's a bit late in my case; I already bought the Portal table.

ON EDIT: I forgot to add: I'm getting a little miffed by developers who are obviously too lazy to optimize a game no matter the platform. I've heard (and experienced myself) the Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 slowdown. Game-breaking? No. Annoying, especially if it can be avoided? Yes.

With the news from hamster and now this, I kind of feel like the switch makes an amazing arcade machine. I'm actually thinking I might build some custom cabinets for my switch. It'll cost a bit but it shouldn't be too hard, put a monitor and switch dock in a cabinet, buy some arcade buttons and wire it all up. I like the idea of doing it with the switch because you can just dock it rather than needing a computer built into the cabinet itself.

I think the game looks good on Switch now but it is great that they are doing this , now Zen can you add some Star Wars tables and some of the Marvel tables that are available on other platforms currently this would make me very happy if so thanks.

I called it out when I got to review the game a while back? I'd rather have a few less visual effects in handheld mode and get better performance! The old Zen Pinball runs at 720p60 on my Tegra 4i phone,there's no reason that the new one couldn't run at the same level on the Tegra X1.

Next question: are the Marvel and Star Wars tables ever coming to Switch? Those are some of the best ones from Zen!

Putting that aside — this is good news. From my perspective, it’s true that Zen historically has been good about product quality and customer relations. Hope the patch works, and everyone is happy with it.

FWIW, having played Zen pinball products on other platforms, I did notice the low frame frame rate on Switch undocked. Certainly playable IMO, but feels like a quantum step backwards to me.

Never noticed any resolution and performance issues on Switch in both modes lol. Neither do I feel forced to spend 80$ to buy all tables. I like the concept of F2P and just buy table that I like. I dont need them all. I love the game and play it often. My girlfriend too. Nice to get a performance patch, though.

@Mommar As someone else pointed out, a pinball table only has digital paddle buttons. I don't know of a single table in the entire history of pinball that has any sort of analog interface with the paddles. Having digital triggers on Switch controllers actually feels much better to me playing pinball than it does on PS4/Xbox/PC. I actually change the paddle buttons on those systems to the digital bumper buttons, since the analog triggers don't feel right playing pinball that way.

@madmatt213 Actually, many machines with upper flippers in real life have dual staged flipper buttons, which allow you to fire only the lower flipper with light pressure, and then any upper flippers with full pressure. This feature is very useful in games that have shots that are blocked by active upper flippers. I know some version of The Pinball Arcade actually support this with analog triggers. Not sure if Zen has ever supported such a feature.

@Romeo-75@sfb@Aerona I'm over on the Zen forums a lot and one of the members from Zen said there is licensing issues with Star Wars, Marvel, and P vs Z. What I don't understand is it wasn't that long ago the other major systems got all those tables and all of a sudden there's issues with Nintendo.

@Spoony_Tech, Thanks for the info . I hate to hear that I would love those tables on my Switch I have some of them on my 3DS and on my Wii U. Hopefully Zen will get something figured out for the Nintendo Switch.

I downloaded the game...played the initial tables...and bought a few more (including the Jurasic Park tables...love those). I never really noticed any kind of off putting resolution or frame rate issues. I enjoy playing the game immensely, although it has some rather slow loading times in handheld mode...its still a ton of fun. I DO want to have my Plants vs Zombies table back from Wii U on my Switch version...one of my favorite tables! Although it is nice that they are going to put out a performance enhancing patch, I guess.

@Nincompoop
Sometimes, and that counts more for small developers than big ones, you reach a point where your initial development budget is spend and you need to get your development investment back with the game´s release. I am not a fan of patching afterwards, too. But one or two patches for a game are not a problem. At all not when there wasn´t any big issue with the initial release. The people complaining about framrates and resolution ALWAYS complain about framerate and resolution (it´s mostly the same bunch of people), no matter if a problem exists or not. Pinball FX3 was playable very well on release (I play it more in handheld mode than TV-mode and never had noticeable problems) and a performance patch is probably just a nice to have for most people.

@EasyDaRon Releasing a half-baked game is doing more harm: hoping to get some quick cash by rushing the product will end up with a bad review and reputation that will last forever on the internet. No amount of patch will changed those reviews. No one's going to rewrite them. I think if you know you made a good game you should do whatever's possible to optimise it before selling it.

“A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.”Miyamoto

@EasyDaRon If it's not half baked then why are they putting 60 fps in portable mode and 1080 in docked mode? They can do this before launching the game, it's their decision to put it out there and patched it later.

If it's a game on cartridge it will make the cartridge a downgraded version. 10 years from now you won't be able to patch when the server is off.

@Nincompoop
Always depends on how the engine is build. If optimization for 1080p and 60fps on Switch adds several months, how long can you keep your company running without a release of the game? It runs up to 60fps in docked mode from the beginning which is more than nice and even 30fps in portable mode are ok. I play it since release and never had any big issues with the performance. Resolution is another thing. You just can´t expect that every game is running at a native resolution on Switch. The Switch hardware is just not powerful enough to do this, especially on multi platform engines, and not even on exclusive games. Optimization always is a good thing. But as long as the release version is running fine and playable, I don´t see a need for companies to spend years on optimization.

This is the greatest news! I absolutely love having Zen Pinball on my Switch, but out of curiousity I ran a comparison with it (docked and handheld) vs. on XBox One X and (obviously) there was no comparison. The Xbox version was absolutely gorgeous and smooth as butter, while the Switch version was, while still quite playable and fun nonetheless, not! Hopefully this patch will bring it a little closer to par, and then It'll be even more amazing being able to take these phenomenal tables with me everywhere I go! And if Zen decides to FINALLY release ALL of the Star Wars tables well, hey guys, I'll buy them all for a third time!!